


The Blind Monk

by emily_hufflepuff



Category: Daredevil (TV), The Last Kingdom (TV)
Genre: Crossover, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, matt murdock as a monk in the 9th century, medieval daredevil
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-05
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-19 00:36:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29866491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emily_hufflepuff/pseuds/emily_hufflepuff
Summary: Brother Matthew is blind but can see better than any man. God has given him a gift and he uses it to protect his monastery from raiding Danes. Uhtred, Finan, Sihtric and Osferth come across Matthew's monastery after a Dane attack, but are surprised what they find.Basically what if Matt (daredevil) was a monk in the 9th century.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 6





	The Blind Monk

**Author's Note:**

> This if my first crossover. This is pretty short and is just something that came to me whilst I was procrastinating. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy x

Shafts of early morning light poured from the windows of the dark chapel as the group of monks knelt for their morning prayers. One monk sat away from the others, his eyes covered with a cloth bound around his head, his staff positioned beside him. He was a strange kind of monk, young and fit with the body of a warrior rather than a man of God. Indeed, he had once been a soldier in the great King Alfred’s army, before his injury at Beamfleot had put his fighting days to an end. Despite losing his eyes at the hands of the Danes, the monk could see better than any of his fellow brothers. He had a gift from God, or so the monks said. Many said that he had the gift of prophesy, able to warn of incoming riders before they came into view and able to pre-empt the movements and decisions of others. Although they believed he saw the future, the monk knew that his gift was entirely different in nature. He was able to warn of riders because he could hear the hooves of their horses trampling the earth from a mile away. He could tell when a man was lying or anticipating an attack from his heart rate that he was able to hear as clear as his own. He knew how long men had been on the road from the way they smelt and could react to a man’s movements due to the tiny tremors in the ground underneath his feet and in the air around him. God had indeed given him a gift, one that allowed him to observe the world in far more detail than any seeing man.

The blind monk tilted his head, a low rumble far off in the distance drawing his attention away from his prayers. Slowly he got to his feet. ‘Brother Matthew, what is it?’ one of his fellow brothers asked.

‘Danes,’ he replied calmly, ‘they are coming.’ The monks rose to their feet, crossing themselves and bowing their heads to the cross before leaving the chapel. Brother Matthew had been correct in his predictions too many times for them to doubt him. They gathered all the valuables they could carry and headed to the woods. No doubt the Danes would tear their monastery apart, taking anything they found of value, and possibly burn it to the ground, but with God’s mercy they should live.

\---

‘Lord!’ Sihtric called from just behind them, ‘Look! Smoke!’

Uhtred looked to where his friend was pointing. Dark clouds of smoke were rising above the treeline, an ominous sign that the land was still not at peace.

‘Danes, Lord?’ asked Finan.

‘I would not be surprised,’ answered Uhtred. They were in an area of Mercia not far from Danelaw, the villages and churches would no doubt provide easy pickings for Danish raiding parties. ‘Let’s go and see if there are still any Danes to kill.’

\---

‘I see no one, Lord,’ Osferth observed, walking between the burning remains of the monastery.

‘Perhaps they took them as slaves?’ Finan offered, but Uhtred shook his head.

‘Danes do not make priests slaves. They kill them, and they enjoy it.’

‘Lord,’ Sihtric said in a low voice, barely above a whisper. ‘We are being watched.’

Uhtred gave a silent order to Sihtric with a simple nod, they had been fighting together long enough not to have to communicate with words. He walked away from the others and circled round behind the building where he had spotted the figure who watched them. Several minutes of silence followed.

‘It’s alright, Lord,’ Sihtric called to them, ‘it is only a monk.’ He returned moments later, half dragging the monk along beside him.

‘Are you going to kill me?’ the monk asked, clearly terrified. ‘We have nothing to give you. Danes have already taken everything we have.’

‘We are not here to harm you,’ Uhtred reassured him, ‘we serve the Lady Aethelflaed of Mercia. We wish to help you.’ The monk relaxed a little but continued to be uneasy, looking from Uhtred and to Sihtric and back again, obviously weary of men who looked so much like Danes.

‘It is alright, brother,’ a voice came from behind one of the buildings, ‘he is Lord Uhtred of Bebbenburg. He is a friend, and he will not harm us.’ A blind monk walked out towards them, using his staff to guide himself.

‘Do I know you?’

‘Before I was a monk, I was a warrior. I fought at Beamfleot, Lord. I recognised your voice,’ the blind monk explained. ‘My name is Brother Matthew, please come with me, you must be hungry after your long journey.’

\---

‘Here, eat this, lord.’ One of the monks handed Uhtred a bowl of hot stew. They sat in a small clearing in the woods next to a small river. It appeared that the monks had hidden provisions in the woods for just this situation.

‘How did you escape? We saw no bodies at the monastery?’

‘We were forewarned, lord. We were able to run to the woods before they arrived.’

‘Who warned you?’

‘God is great. He guides us.’ The monk’s answer made Uhtred roll his eyes. He was about to make some sarcastic comment when he was interrupted.

‘Everyone be quiet,’ Brother Matthew ordered. Uhtred frowned, not liking taking orders from a monk. ‘Danes, they are here in the woods.’

‘And how the hell do you know that?’ Finan asked, a sceptical look on his face.

‘How I know is not relevant. They are coming and my guess is that they wish to kill us,’ Matthew snapped.

‘How many men? From which direction?’ Uhtred demanded.

The blind monk stayed incredibly still for a moment, slightly cocking his head to one side as if listening intently. ‘Twelve, lord. They come from all directions; they mean to surround us.’

‘Lord, what do we do?’ Sihtric asked, his eyes darting from tree to tree trying to spot the imminent danger.

There was only four of them, plus the monks who he doubted could fight. That meant they would have to take three each; they had faced worse odds in the past and survived. If the monk was to be believed, Uhtred had few choices available to him. He turned to face his men. ‘We fight.’

\---

The Danes came from all sides, pinning them against the river. There were twelve of them, just like the monk had said. Uhtred and his men were the better fighters, but they were outnumbered one to three and had the monks to protect. It was a fight that they seemed unlikely to win. Uhtred swung his sword with all his might, fighting two Danes at once. Finan and Sihtric fought back to back beside him, taking on five men between them. He couldn’t see Osferth but heard the clash of his sword behind him, defending the monks that had retreated to the river. They had dispatched several of the Danes to Valhalla already but there were still too many left standing.

Suddenly one of the Danes he was fighting was no longer on his feet, instead he was bent double in pain. Uhtred did not see who had cast the blow to the man’s stomach, too focused on the other men that attacked him from all sides. He rammed his sword through a large Dane’s throat, blood pouring down his neck and flooding his mouth as he fell to the floor. He turned to where Finan and Sihtric fought, ready to run to his friends’ aid but found he was not needed.

Over half the Danes lay dead or wounded on the ground. Finan and Sihtric stood over the two they had just killed and Uhtred watched as Osferth slit open the belly of another. That left only three fighting, and yet none of them were fighting Uhtred or his men. Instead they stood and watched as the blind monk fought them, using his staff as a club. He hit with great precision, dodging and swerving attacks better than most able sighted men. He twirled the staff around and landed a blow to one of the Dane’s head, knocking him to the ground. The monk then knocked the legs from under the other two men, causing them to stumble to the ground. With two strong wielded blows of his staff they lay unconscious on the ground.

They all stood dumbfounded. It would have been a shock to see a monk fight like that even without him also being blind. Uhtred could not understand how a warrior could fight without eyesight, your other senses were important in battle, but they could never compensate for the loss of sight completely.

‘God has granted me a gift, Lord Uhtred,’ the blind monk explained. ‘He works in the most mysterious of ways. Wouldn’t you agree?’ And with that he left them, walking over to where the other monks stood, shaken but unharmed. Uhtred looked at Finan, his friend as confused and shocked as he was. It seemed neither of them were sure what they had just witnessed.


End file.
